In Which the Steamer Cogitates Awhile on His Not-Too-Distant Future

Monday, May 7, 2007 7:30 PM

Greetings, fellows of the 'verse, and I have just returned from a weekend family get-together. Long story short, my dad was in the hospital last week - seems he's becoming increasingly prone to blood clots in his legs and so he had to spend a few days off his feet. So he finally made it home on Friday, whereupon the fam descended en masse (actually it was just me, the folks, my sister and her family, but her two boys filled up the entire ruttin' house) for a little family get-together.

For the most part we had a lovely time. My older nephew is three, and already he's kuang-zhe-de for trains. Needless to say, it excites him to no end what Uncle Chris does for a living. What excites him the more is that most of my childhood model trains still proliferate in the basement, and so guess who got to spend almost three hours down there with him making sure he didn't get into mischief....Took me much of the following morning to rerail cars, put tracks back together and rearrange the scenery to its original form. As you can well imagine, it was nice to watch him enjoying himself, having the fun that a little kid is supposed to have - but later on it also had me thinking, again, about why I don't want any children of mine own. Putting up with that kind of business day after day? Staying up until all hours when they get cranky, especially with my job? Troubling my head about what kind of mischief they're getting into at school? Amongst other reasons....nope, no thank you.

But it's kind of a moot point in light of....yeah, you know what's coming. So if you're tired of reading it, best you stop here.

I never did think much on what it was like to grow up alone, because surrounded by the little bastards of my age group, I preferred it that way. Still do, to an extent. But the other day, I began to ruminate on what it'll be like to grow old alone. Doubtless I will, because I've seen what loneliness is like and I've also seen what the other L-word has to offer. With that for a base, it hit me today that I've chosen a lonesome lifetime because it's the proverbial lesser of two evils. And as you all clamour, Don't give up yet, You just haven't found the right person, and You're young and you've got time, I sit here and quietly repeat: You all are fortunate enough to know the pros and cons of being in the L-word. All I know, all I have, is the cons. A life alone is going to turn me into a mean old man, but giving in to the L-word is going to make me downright miserable. Why do you think I'm strictly referring to it as the L-word? See, I don't even want to say it. Misery is all it's ever brought me. In my brain pan, misery and the L-word are synonyms. I've got a vasty 'verse of better things to do that will bring me much greater pleasure, and however ironic it sounds, doing them alone will itself be ever more delightful.

(Something else that's been on my mind a lot lately: it also doesn't help to feel like I'm the only Christian Browncoat alive. A year and a half and who have I met who shares both those traits? Not nobody.)

So the data support the conclusion: growing old alone - depressing as it sounds, even to me - will still make me happier than letting the L-word blast me in the gut again.

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